Rule #1 Don’t Be #2 – You Get What You Work For Not What You Wish For

In this book, author Daniel Milstein provides a manual for success. The author escaped the former Soviet Union as a teenager, coming to the United States almost literally penniless. He has since built a business empire with interests in finance, sports management, publishing, and film. The book is laid out in 25 short chapters with pithy titles such as “Go Big or Go Home,” “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize,” and “Stand Up and Be Counted.”

The book is structured something like a manual, with its short chapters and large print for key points. It is easy to read, targeting the busy reader interested in putting ideas into action. Principles of hard work, clarifying goals, and improving individual performance prevail throughout. The book offers examples of success stories such as Ben Carson, a brain surgeon and member of the Trump administration, who rose from poverty through his dedication to education. The book also has exercises such as focusing on and writing down goals. It is well written, has a strong writing style, and is professionally packaged by the author’s publishing company. The most impressive part of the overall book is the author himself, who is a role model for his advice, an important feature of the motivational/self-help genre. Without such success, an author is not credible. Another important part of this work is that “success” is self-defined, hence the focus on personal goals, but the author’s techniques for reaching those goals seem applicable across a range of areas. The individual reader might regard Milstein’s personal success story of managing an international corporation as a nightmare when applied to herself, but she may have a dream of achieving success in the arts. The author’s strategies of defining this goal and of maintaining focus on and working toward it are still applicable to that reader. My one criticism of the work is it tends to be repetitive. The theme of setting goals, for example, is repeated throughout. But any solid work, fiction or nonfiction, has a theme. The author has in this work achieved the goal of reaching “number one.”